"aide to Mr. Thorpe. Commonwealth affairs. overseas development. Mr. Richard Wainwright ((Colne Valley): Treasury. labour, economic affairs. Dr. Michael Winstanley (Cheadle,: Rome °Mee. health. Post °Mee. ... Liberal Party Frontbench Team, 1967–76 Members of the British Liberal Party's Frontbench Team from 1967 to 1976 (leaderships listed chronologically): Mr. Thorpe announced changes in the organisation of the Parliamentary Liberal Party, and the reallocation of duties among the 12 Liberal M Ps. Mr. Jo Grimond. who resigned as Leader of the party last month. has been invited to undertake a general oversight of foreign affairs. defence, and regionalism. His sphere will Include"
"Jeremy Thorpe John Jeremy Thorpe (29 April 1929 – 4 December 2014) was a British politician who served as Member of Parliament for North Devon from 1959 to 1979, and as leader of the Liberal Party between 1967 and 1976. In May 1979 he was tried at the Old Bailey on charges of conspiracy and incitement to murder, arising from an earlier relationship with Norman Scott, a former model. Thorpe was acquitted on all charges, but the case, and the furore surrounding it, ended his political career. Thorpe was the son and grandson of Conservative MPs, but decided to align"
"shelved after his acquittal. Jeremy Thorpe John Jeremy Thorpe (29 April 1929 – 4 December 2014) was a British politician who served as Member of Parliament for North Devon from 1959 to 1979, and as leader of the Liberal Party between 1967 and 1976. In May 1979 he was tried at the Old Bailey on charges of conspiracy and incitement to murder, arising from an earlier relationship with Norman Scott, a former model. Thorpe was acquitted on all charges, but the case, and the furore surrounding it, ended his political career. Thorpe was the son and grandson of Conservative MPs,"
"had not been frank about the true nature of his friendship with Scott. On 10 May 1976, amid rising criticism, Thorpe resigned the party leadership, ""convinced that a fixed determination to destroy the Leader could itself result in the destruction of the Party"". Thorpe's resignation brought him a period of temporary calm. The new Liberal leader, David Steel, made him party spokesman on foreign affairs, with responsibility for European issues. Wilson had by this time retired as prime minister, and been replaced by James Callaghan. Thorpe lobbied the government hard for legislation to introduce direct elections to the European Parliament;"
"the leader of the mainstream party from the time when he entered the government. This was made formal after the 1931 election. Under the original provisions of the 1969 party constitution, the MPs elected one of their number to be Leader of the Liberal Party. This was the same system as that used for the last MP only contested leadership election in 1967, when Jeremy Thorpe became leader after a vote split between three candidates of 6-3-3. As the number of Liberal MPs was very small (between 6 and 14 in the period the MPs retained the sole power of"
"with the small and ailing Liberal Party. After reading law at Oxford University he became one of the Liberals' brightest stars in the 1950s. He entered Parliament at the age of 30, made a rapid mark, and was elected party leader in 1967. After an uncertain start during which the party lost ground, Thorpe capitalised on the growing unpopularity of the Conservative and Labour parties to lead the Liberals through a period of notable electoral success. This culminated in the general election of February 1974, when the party won 6 million votes. Under the first-past-the-post electoral system this gave them"
"One more heave ""One more heave"" was a slogan used by British Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe during the October 1974 general election and a phrase used (sometimes pejoratively) to describe the political strategy of John Smith, leader of the Labour Party from July 1992 until his death in May 1994. Jeremy Thorpe became leader of the Liberal Party in January 1967. The 1970 general election was disappointing as the Liberals lost six of their twelve seats in the House of Commons. But in the February 1974 general election, they increased their number of MPs to 14 and won over"
"1976 Liberal Party (UK) leadership election The 1976 Liberal Party (UK) leadership election was called following the resignation of Jeremy Thorpe in the wake of allegations which would eventually lead to Mr. Thorpe's trial and acquittal for conspiracy to murder in 1979. There were two candidates, David Steel and John Pardoe, who were elected by a ballot of an electoral college made up of representatives of the various constituency associations, with their vote ""weighted"" by the strength of the Liberal vote at the previous general election. This electoral system was devised by Michael Steed, and this election proved to be"
"time round. I think he was right, we would have won, but to sustain us in power and lock out the Tories, possibly for a generation, required far more brutal changes."" One more heave ""One more heave"" was a slogan used by British Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe during the October 1974 general election and a phrase used (sometimes pejoratively) to describe the political strategy of John Smith, leader of the Labour Party from July 1992 until his death in May 1994. Jeremy Thorpe became leader of the Liberal Party in January 1967. The 1970 general election was disappointing as"
"the only time it was ever used to elect a Liberal leader. The election was won by David Steel, who served as leader of the Liberal Party until merger with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1988, forming the Liberal Democrats. David Steel later served as interim leader of the Liberal Democrats (jointly with Bob Maclennan of the SDP) for the duration of the 1988 leadership election which eventually elected Paddy Ashdown as the new party's first permanent leader. 1976 Liberal Party (UK) leadership election The 1976 Liberal Party (UK) leadership election was called following the resignation of Jeremy Thorpe"
"proved attractive to many young aspiring politicians, including John Pardoe and three future party leaders, David Steel, Paddy Ashdown and Sir Menzies Campbell. He appealed to all wings of the party and was especially popular with the Young Liberals. In 1967, having led the party through three general elections, he made way for a younger leader, the charismatic Jeremy Thorpe. In 1976, when Thorpe was forced to resign because of a scandal, Grimond stepped in as interim leader until the election of a replacement, David Steel. Among other posts, Grimond was a barrister and publisher in the 1930s, an army"
"Thorpe affair The Thorpe affair of the 1970s was a British political and sex scandal that ended the career of Jeremy Thorpe, the leader of the Liberal Party and Member of Parliament (MP) for North Devon. The scandal arose from allegations by Norman Josiffe (otherwise known as Norman Scott) that he and Thorpe had a homosexual relationship in the early 1960s, and that Thorpe had begun a badly-planned conspiracy to murder Josiffe, who was threatening to expose their affair. Thorpe denied any such relationship, while admitting that the two had been friends. With the help of political colleagues and a"
"the duty manager's arm, while on 10 January 1992 an IRA briefcase bomb exploded outside the club, shattering many of its windows. During the February 1974 general election campaign, Liberal Leader Jeremy Thorpe was defending a wafer-thin majority of 369 votes in his Devon constituency. Instead of fighting a ""typical"" party leader's election campaign based in London and focusing on the London-based media, Thorpe spent almost the entire election in his constituency, keeping in contact with the national press via a live closed-circuit television link-up to daily press conferences at the National Liberal Club. Thorpe later credited this system with"
"British Group of Liberal International. She was Chairman of the Liberal Party social security panel. She was President of the Liberal Party from 1975-76. Her term of office coincided with the time of the revelations about party leader, Jeremy Thorpe's private life and his subsequent resignation. Wingfield also stood as a Liberal candidate for public office. She stood as a candidate for the London County Council. She also stood four times for parliament; for Wokingham in 1964 and 1966, at the Walthamstow West by-election, 1967 and for Chippenham in 1970. Margaret Wingfield Margaret E. Wingfield CBE (19 January 1912 –"
"MPs, down one. The result was a great disappointment to Thorpe and marked the beginning of the end of his tenure as leader. He was ousted as Liberal leader in May 1976 after the Thorpe affair, which concerned his alleged homosexual relationship with Norman Scott and the shooting of Scott's dog by a hired gunman. Thorpe was later tried and acquitted of conspiracy and incitement to murder, but lost his seat at the 1979 general election. David Dutton wrote in ""A History of the Liberal Party since 1900"" that, ""By adopting the phrase 'one more heave', the party tried to"
"principle by 56 votes to 30 in November 1978. He kept up the campaign after Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, but she refused to initiate talks. In 1978 Wade urged Jeremy Thorpe to stand down after Thorpe was charged with conspiracy to murder. Donald Wade, Baron Wade Donald William Wade, Baron Wade, DL (16 June 1904 – 6 November 1988) was a British solicitor who became a Liberal Party Member of Parliament. Wade's time in Parliament coincided with the time the Liberals were at their lowest ebb but his job as Chief Whip kept the party operating until times were"
"had secured six votes against three each for Eric Lubbock, the Orpington MP, and Emlyn Hooson who had succeeded to the Montgomeryshire seat. On 18 January Lubbock and Hooson withdrew their candidacies, and Thorpe was declared the winner. As Liberal leader, Thorpe provided a clear contrast with the pedestrian images of Wilson and Edward Heath, the Conservative leader since March 1965. He was considerably younger, and much more telegenic. His first years of leadership were problematic; he found himself at odds with the Young Liberals, who were advocating policies far to the left of the Liberal mainstream. Their demands for"
"less than 20% of the vote. Thorpe was adopted as North Devon's Liberal candidate in April 1952. His political stance matched that of other young activists, who believed that the party should offer a radical non-socialist alternative to the Conservative government. He and others founded the Radical Reform Group, to drive the party in that direction. He spent much of his spare time cultivating the voters in North Devon; at rallies and on the doorstep he mixed local concerns with conspicuously liberal views on larger, international issues such as colonialism and apartheid. When Anthony Eden, who had succeeded Winston Churchill"
"Bessell. Hooson suggested a meeting at the House of Commons. On 26 and 27 May 1971 Scott told his story to Hooson and David Steel, the Liberals' chief whip. Neither was fully convinced, but felt the matter warranted further investigation. Against Thorpe's wishes, a confidential party enquiry was arranged for 9 June, to be chaired by Lord Byers, the leader of the Liberals in the House of Lords. At the enquiry Byers took a tough line against Scott, failing to offer him a chair and treating him, Scott said, ""like a boy at school up before the headmaster."" Byers's unsympathetic"
"by allegations that its former leader Jeremy Thorpe had been involved in a homosexual affair, and had conspired to murder his former lover. The Liberals were now being led by David Steel, meaning that all three major parties entered the election with a new leader. The election saw a 5.2% swing from Labour to the Conservatives, the largest swing since the 1945 election, which Clement Attlee won for Labour. Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, and Callaghan was replaced as Labour leader by Michael Foot in 1980. Results for the election were broadcast live on the BBC, and presented by David"
"Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe at North Devon, and David Clarke whose personal campaign assistant was the Chairman of the Club's Young Members' Group, Christopher Horne, and who failed by only 76 votes at Watford. By 1971, the club ""undoubtedly had the largest membership of any conservative group and included 55 different groups in universities and colleges, 35 Members of Parliament with six in the government, and 35 Peers"". At the club's Annual General Meeting on 26 April 1971, in Westminster Central Hall, the Chairman, George Pole, announced that ""our membership, including national, branches and universities is around 10,000."" John Biggs-Davison,"
"a change of Prime Minister. The former was unacceptable to Heath's Cabinet and the latter to Heath personally, so the talks collapsed. Instead a minority Labour government was formed under Harold Wilson but with no formal support from Thorpe. In the October 1974 general election, the Liberals slipped back slightly and the Labour government won a wafer-thin majority. Thorpe was subsequently forced to resign after allegations that he attempted to have his homosexual lover murdered by a hitman. The party's new leader, David Steel, negotiated the Lib-Lab pact with Wilson's successor as Prime Minister, James Callaghan. According to this pact,"
"MP, he was responsible for introducing, as a Private Member's Bill, the Abortion Act 1967, and has argued for greater liberalisation of this legislation in recent years (see Abortion in the United Kingdom). He also became the Liberal Party's spokesman on employment, and in 1970 its Chief Whip. In 1976, after the downfall of Jeremy Thorpe, and a short period in which Jo Grimond acted as caretaker leader, he won the Liberal leadership by a wide margin over John Pardoe. At only 38 years old, he was one of the youngest party leaders in British history. In March 1977, he"
"Ronald Gardner-Thorpe Colonel Sir Ronald Laurence Gardner-Thorpe (13 May 1917 – 11 December 1991), was a British company director and Liberal Party politician who also became Lord Mayor of London in 1980. Gardner-Thorpe was the son of Joseph Gardner and Hannah Coulthurst Thorpe. He was educated at St John's College, Portsmouth. In 1938 he married Hazel Mary Dees. They had one son. Gardner-Thorpe was Liberal candidate for the Eastbourne division of Sussex at the 1959 General Election. The Liberals had not run a candidate at the previous election in 1955. He managed a respectable 18% poll, finishing third. He was"
"notable casualty of the election was George Brown, deputy leader of the Labour Party, who lost to the Conservative candidate in the Belper constituency. Brown had held the seat since 1945. Unusually for the Liberal Party, the by-elections between 1966 and 1970 had proved almost fruitless, with many Liberal candidates losing deposits. The one exception was its by-election gain of Birmingham Ladywood in June 1969; this was promptly lost in the 1970 general election. The party found itself struggling to introduce its new leader Jeremy Thorpe to the public, owing to the extensive coverage and attention paid to Enoch Powell."
"Leader of the Liberal Party (UK) The Liberal Party was formally established in 1859 and existed until merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to create the Liberal Democrats. Before the adoption of the 1969 constitution of the party, the party was led by the prime minister or the most recent politically active prime minister from the party. In the absence of one of these, the leaders in the House of Lords and House of Commons were of equal status and jointly led the party. When a new leader was required, with the party in government, the monarch selected"
"particular he canvassed the support of the young post-war university students and recent graduates, appealing to younger voters in a way that many of his recent predecessors had not, and asserting a new strand of Liberalism for the post-war world. The new middle-class suburban generation began to find the Liberals' policies attractive again. Under Grimond (who retired in 1967) and his successor, Jeremy Thorpe, the Liberals regained the status of a serious third force in British politics, polling up to 20% of the vote, but unable to break the duopoly of Labour and Conservative and win more than fourteen seats"
"Whip of the Independent Liberals led by H H Asquith and held the post until 1923. In that year he was the Vice-Chairman of Liberal Parliamentary Party. George Thorne (politician) George Rennie Thorne (12 October 1853 – 20 February 1934) was a British solicitor and politician. Thorne was educated at Tettenhall College, Wolverhampton and became a solicitor in 1876 . In 1886, he married Susan Mary Jones and they had two daughters. He went on to become senior member of the law form G R Thorne & Sons of Wolverhampton and London. Thorne entered local politics in Wolverhampton being a"
"Philip Watkins Philip George Watkins (5 November 1930 – 1 June 1995) was an English accountant and Liberal Party politician. He was for many years treasurer of the Liberal Party and during the 1970s had to endure both the spotlight of the media during the Jeremy Thorpe affair and an investigation into the finances of the party under Thorpe's leadership. Philip Watkins was born in Bristol, one of a pair of twin boys. He was orphaned in childhood and he and his twin, Bob, and their brother David were looked after by an uncle and aunt. He read Greats at"
"the debate club and spoke at various places in the United States. Then upon return, he heard a Liberal Party leader, Lord Hugh Cecil remark that the Church was the place to go if you wanted to help people, and he heard that as his vocation from God. He remained a Liberal, and became close friends with Jeremy Thorpe, leader of the Liberal Party from 1967 until his sudden resignation in 1976. Ramsey and Joan, his wife, were godparents of Thorpe's son Rupert whom Ramsey baptized in 1969, and Ramsey officiated at Thorpe's second marriage to Marion, after his first"
"from being neither Conservative or Labour, the Liberals lacked a distinctive identity and their policies were largely unknown to the public. A further problem for the party was the divergence between its activists, who were radicals well to the left of the official party, and a large section of its recent supporters who were disgruntled Conservatives. Thorpe, whose personal majority in North Devon had fallen to under 7,000 in October, confided to an associate that, unless the party were soon to make a significant impact, his days as leader might be numbered. In the months following the election the danger"
"candidate against Margaret Thatcher in Finchley. In the 1966 election, the Liberal Party increased its number of MPs from nine to twelve: one of them was Pardoe, who captured the North Cornwall seat from the Conservative Party's James Scott-Hopkins. He rapidly became the party's Economic Affairs spokesman in parliament and was respected for the intellect of his views, if not for the often partisan nature of his comments. In 1976, after the resignation of Jeremy Thorpe, Pardoe was a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party. He lost to David Steel, who received 12,541 votes to Pardoe's 7,032. In"
"2003, the Liberals had spent fourteen years in power under four different leaders. Public disaffection had mounted resulting in their electoral defeat by Danny Williams and the Tories. Grimes stayed on as Liberal leader until his retirement on May 30, 2005, when he was replaced, initially on an interim basis, by Gerry Reid. Lawyer Jim Bennett was acclaimed party leader on February 6, 2006, after no other candidate came forward for the post. Bennett's leadership started causing rifts within the Liberal caucus after controversial policies statements and his reported abrasive leadership style. In April of that year Bennett was criticized"